Co-operation of parties urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32846, 21 February 1972, Page 5

Co-operation of parties urged

An appeal to New Zealand’s major political parties to work together this election year to solve “the two great issues which must occupy the political mind between now and the election”—Britain’s entry into the E.E.C. and New Zealand's inflation—is made by Sir Wilfrid Sim in a pamphlet published recently.

Sir Wilfrid Sim, since he retired from the presidency of the National Party in 1951, has had “no association of any kind with political circles.”

“The above measures must occupy the earnest attention of both parties, and specially the most gifted members in each,” he says. “How can such issues be effectively handled in an atmosphere of party warfare, political quarrelling for the sake of quarrelling, the attention on points of electioneering advantage. the critical watchfulness of each by the other? The great need, as the Court of Arbiration has emphasised, is “co-operation and the promotion of it.”

Might it be suggested that the vacillations and uncertainties of an election year be brushed aside, and the country permitted to express its opinion before the normal date? Sir William Sim says. Referring to the “able handling” by Mr Marshall of the E.E.C. negotiations, he expresses the hope “that when he picks it up again he will have the added status and authority necessary for the occasion of leader of the party and Prime Minister.” (The pamphlet was published! before the reitrement of Sir 1 Keith Holyoake). Mr Muldoon had “the hon-j our and misfortune to be at least the stepfather of the! taxation system which has all but brought the private enterprise system to disaster,” Sir Wilfred Sim says. His job was to lead New Zealand out of its “schizophrenic state” into a more singleminded state, involving, fori some time to come, all round I

sacrifice —“involving the taking of less and the giving of more.”